


Aerodynamics

by busaikko



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Bicycles, Community: mcsmooch, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-23
Updated: 2008-12-23
Packaged: 2017-11-04 11:22:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/393258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/busaikko/pseuds/busaikko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summary:  <i> Sheppard was recalled to Earth five years ago; nothing personal, just one of those things the military did.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Aerodynamics

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Aerodynamics {The Flip to the B-Side Mix}](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5243) by [gblvr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gblvr/pseuds/gblvr). 



> Warning: Haven't been in Chicago for, oh, nearly 20 years. Did, however, love to race the traffic on my bike.
> 
> Artwork by Almost Clara can be found [here](http://mcsmooch.livejournal.com/35121.html?thread=1202737#t1202737).

Rodney picks up yet another rental car in O'Hare. It has great gas mileage and is white and he hates it with a dull passion that he thinks is because middle age must be creeping up on him. His birthday's the week after Christmas, which means another rental car in Vancouver, and he thinks, as he follows the creep of traffic towards I90, that maybe he should call and ask for something red and sporty.

Then he catches a glimpse of his hairline in the side mirror and decides, no.

He is thinking about his presentation and feeling annoyed at the flood of people travelling home for the holidays, suitcases weighed down with presents and fruitcake instead of flash drives and Ancient artifacts. The cheery lights and the decorations grate on his nerves, and the irritation makes him forget about the nightmarish spaghetti bowl of intersections right outside the airport, so he finds himself accidentally in the wrong lane for the Mannheim turnoff, but he makes it anyway. The woman in the Kia deserved to get cut off, he decides, because she appears to be wearing antlers.

It isn't remotely Christmas-y here in Chicago. There isn't any snow on the ground. It's all anyone has talked with him about since he boarded the plane in California. Global warming, said the 4711-doused woman next to him on the plane and the man who made him remove his shoes and his belt and his overpriced winter coat (cashmere in the dark blue of winter's night, can we way _midlife crisis_ , boys and girls?) and the car rental guy and the Starbucks lady and every Chicago DJ after every mutilation of a holiday song by a talentless pop singer. As if climactic change is _news_. Americans, he thinks. Mention the Kyoto Protocol and nine out of ten of them will ask if that was the one with Bruce Willis or Keanu Reeves.

There's an absolutely insane person on a bicycle steadily passing the cars behind him. Wearing those ridiculous black thigh-clinging bike shorts, in Chicago, in the winter -- and really, what is it about the human psyche that makes _aerodynamic_ synonymous with _sexy_? The car in front of Rodney brakes hard for a yellow light, and Rodney swears and brakes hard, and watches in the rear-view mirror as the woman behind him swears, smacking the steering wheel with her open palm. The man on the bicycle slips up on her, and Rodney has a sudden sharp view of hairy knees and red fleece and a familiar sharp nose under the helmet, and he throws the parking brake and flings open the door before he even considers, one, that he might be wrong, and two, _bicycle_.

"Motherfucker," says a voice he never thought he'd hear again, pilot's reflexes preventing a really spectacular crash. There is still crashing, however, the curb doing dreadful things to the front tire of what's probably an insanely expensive bicycle.

"Sheppard?" Rodney says, trying to get out of the car still with his seatbelt on and not even understanding what's holding his shoulders back when his heart is already out there, in the midwinter thaw, in this suburban Chicago gutter with the man Rodney's best dreams and worst nightmares are about.

"So you're trying to kill me now?" Sheppard says, looking over from his inspection of the damage to his _bicycle_ as if he hasn't noticed that there's a bloody gash curling around his left knee. Rodney frees himself and stumbles out, and Sheppard straightens, pulling off his helmet like an afterthought -- it's meaningless now anyway, because the bicycle is totally unrideable. The Sheppard hair isn't even crushed, but that's just a minor miracle.

Sheppard was recalled to Earth five years ago; nothing personal, just one of those things the military did. Rodney stayed on in Atlantis another three years, and then another year on the alpha site. He lost contact with Sheppard -- everyone did. When Rodney finally returned to Earth he tried to track Sheppard down, but the man had left the military and seemingly the face of the planet (except not, because Rodney would have _known_ if Sheppard was still involved with the SGC).

This is the real miracle, he'll never ask for another Christmas present ever again, he thinks, standing on the side of the road unable to not touch Sheppard. It's not even like an addiction, because he never did this before. It's total fantasy-fulfilment, and at some level he knows that, like Sheppard's bike, he's slipped several gears, but --

He puts his hand on Sheppard's shoulder, squeezing enough to feel bone beneath, and heat. His other hand reaches up to cup Sheppard's cheek, red with wind and cold and -- probably -- anger at being run off the road.

"I'm sorry," Rodney says, curling his knuckles against stubble, running his thumb along the line of Sheppard's jaw. "I don't mean to be creepy and weird, it's just, _you're alive_ , you're alive, and -- God, look at you."

He _is_ looking, he's drunk with looking, cataloguing differences and memories: eyes framed with wrinkles that are deeper than they were before, hair shot through with silver, a scar that was never there before sliding up from Sheppard's left temple to disappear into his hair. He looks, and he touches, and he has no idea how he will ever stop.

"I'm alive," Sheppard says, "and I'm sorry if I'm reading this all wrong, but -- " Sheppard keeps his eyes steady on Rodney's as he tilts his head, and leans forward, and presses a surprisingly soft kiss to Rodney's mouth. " _You're_ alive," he says, pulling back with such a tentative smile that Rodney actually aches, because how could Sheppard think that this wasn't what he wanted; and then again, how could Sheppard know? They'd never once spoken about whatever it was between them, and Rodney liked to think that it was because they were honorable and responsible and self-sacrificing, and not because they were cowards.

He isn't a coward now, though, and he moves his one hand to the back of Sheppard's neck and slides the other into his hair and pulls him into a kiss of his own; trying to say everything, trying to pull Sheppard inside him where it's safe, trying to hold the whole world still. After a moment Sheppard shudders against him, and then Rodney is yanked close, wrapped in fierce wiry arms, being kissed and held in a way that feels like Sheppard saving his life all over again, or maybe it's the other way around, or maybe -- maybe -- they're done with all that and can finally go home to the happily ever after.


End file.
